Kinase by kinase in PAH

In the span of three weeks, cancer drugs Gleevec imatinib and Sprycel dasatinib have shown divergent signals in pulmonary arterial hypertension. Gleevec met the primary endpoint of treating PAH symptoms in a Phase III trial, while FDA updated Sprycel's label to include warnings of increased PAH risk. The likely reason the two tyrosine kinase inhibitors showed polar opposite activity is that Sprycel hits a broader range of kinases than Gleevec.

In September, Novartis AG announced that Gleevec plus standard of care (SOC) met the primary endpoint of a significant improvement in 6-minute walk distance (6MWD) compared to placebo plus SOC in the Phase III IMPRES trial in PAH (see BioCentury, Oct. 10)...